A Five Years' Residence in Buenos Ayres, During the years 1820 to 1825: Containing Remarks on the Country and Inhabitants; and a Visit to Colonia Del SacramentoLove, George Thomas
History
A Five Years' Residence in Buenos Ayres, During the years 1820 to 1825: Containing Remarks on the Country and Inhabitants; and a Visit to Colonia Del Sacramento
Love, George Thomas
Buenos Aires (Argentina) -- Description and travel; Colonia del Sacramento (Uruguay) -- Description and travel
I have never seen any of the fair inhabitants of these convents; but
when the nuns of Buenos Ayres have formed the subject of conversation, I
have eagerly listened, expecting to hear something of disappointed love,
or confidence betrayed. Alas it was in vain: the ladies of St. Juan and
Catalina are nuns from the dull routine of religion, with one exception
only, if my information is true; and advantage was not taken to quiz
my avidity for nunnery news. The tale runs, that St. Juan's convent
does contain, a victim of "despised love." Her lover, an officer, of
course--for what men in trade ever think of love?--joined the army
in Peru, and married another. At the age of seventeen, the fair,
betrayed girl fearlessly took the veil, chiding her weeping mother
for her cruelty, nay, sinfulness, at shewing such affliction for what
constituted her daughter's only happiness. An account of the ceremony
was given me;--but who shall take the field in description, after the
glowing details we have read in romances? and especially at second-hand.
The majority of the nuns in these two convents are aged, having received
very few additions, lately, of the youthful class. Has man, false man,
become more constant, no longer striving to break the heart of the
doting fair one or, are the ladies less sensitive, preferring, at all
hazards, this bustling world to the cloister's gloom, exclaiming with
Sheridan's _Clara_,
"Adieu, thou dreary pile, where never dies
"The sullen echo of repentant sighs!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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